Any language on LingQ?

Open Forum
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Greetings!

It would be great and I wonder if it would be possible to use LingQ to study any language, languages that are not “supported” by LingQ at this time…

What I mean is, is there any way we users can add or create dictionaries for lesser studied languages on our own, and then import content in those languages to study using LingQ’s “revolutionary learning tools”?

I was thinking similar to how we can highlight and choose to add a new “hint” or definition to words in the languages we are currently studying on LingQ, we could do the same thing with our new language.

Is this possible, or something that would need to be done by the programmers?

I love LingQ’s tools and just wish I could use it for studying a certain language that is not currently supported.

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There are definitely some flexibility issues, where LingQ could learn from LWT!

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@LFJ - There is no way for users to add a new language and dictionaries for studying it. However, you can always use a language slot you are not using for learning another language. You wouldn’t be able to set up dictionaries but you could store your hints and use the review tools.

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Anyone has experienced ancient greek using an empty slot and importing their own material?
Since i already have what i think are the best contents to study it and since i’m already here to study latin i would like to give it a try… What about the alphabet and accents? Since i don’t need to speak it i could also register readings of my resources by myself…
Suggestions from ancient greek speakers/lingq experts?

Speaking of dreams… Sanskrit would be my next choice after ancient greek… But quite frankly i don’t think i’m going to see it on lingq… Not even lingq 8.0

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@Argo: A long while ago I imported some Ancient Greek content and all worked well. No problem whatsoever with accents or alphabet.

Just today I was thinking on studying Ancient Greek again here. I’ll probably use the Esperanto slot, since I doubt I’ll be studying that language any time soon. If we all use the same slot, any hint we put on a lingq will be available to the others as well, and that’s a good thing.

(Other possible slot choices for me would be Norwegian, Finnish and Turkish)

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@Argo
Like rafael_nc, I also import Ancient Greek and use it successfully.
However, at least under LingQ 1.0, we were advised to avoid using the Chinese slot or the Japanese slot.
I don’t know the technical reasons, but I don’t think any other language works in either of those two slots.
Though maybe you study Cherokee in the Chinese slot?

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@Argo: “Since i don’t need to speak it i could also register readings of my resources by myself…”

Maybe you do this for your own benefit. But, and you probably already know this, when you upload a lesson for private study, you don’t have to include an audio file.

@rafael_nc: "If we all use the same slot, any hint we put on a lingq will be available to the others as well, and that’s a good thing. "

I use the Dutch slot.

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@Raphael: i’m knew here and a didn’t know hints were public…that’s a good reason to all use the same slot. I could use esperanto too since i’m not going to study it. I’ve seen your profile…lots of latin hours ! And as far as assimil is concerned, great choice! I used it too and now going through lingua latina per se illustrata by Orberg. Theese kind of courses imported here i think are the best way to go through a language. Let’s keep in touch so we can help each other with this great language!
@Don: i’ve also seen your profile… It’s great to find someone with such a strong passion for literature. To me language learning it’s all about that.

By the way… The resource i recommend is Athenaze vol. 1 and 2 …a method written in the same way of Orberg’s lingua latina per se illustrata.

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@Argo: Yes, I’ve done a lot of hours of Latin, but most of those were very inefficient :frowning:

@DonHamilton : Dutch is not good for me. That’ll be my next Germanic language once I feel comfortable in German.

Starting today, I’m using the Esperanto slot for Ancient Greek.

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@Raphael great… Are you starting from scratch? What resources are you going to use for ancient greek? I would like to use Athenaze as i said but the problem would be manually typing long chapters in a different language. I was thinking about using assimil here. The dialogs are shorter and it should be easier to write them… Suggestions?

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@Argo: A couple of years ago I studied up to lesson 70 of Assimil’s “Le Grec ancien”. I actually typed all those 70 lessons back then so I’m now importing them here for review. Typing the lessons can be cumbersome at the beginning but, actually, for me it was very useful because I had to pay attention spelling, accents and aspirations. Besides, after a while typing in Ancient Greek is not harder than typing in any Latin alphabet based language. I’ll probably type all the remaining lessons in Assimil’s course.

I just looked at the Athenaze books and I think they’re great.

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@Argo: “What resources are you going to use for ancient greek?”

  1. I used JACT Learning Greek, First Edition, to learn Ancient Greek from scratch. I liked that approach a lot, and I read that the Second Edition is even better.

  2. Typing lessons grows very tedious. The University of Texas at Austin maintains a site, Classical Greek Online, which displays texts, translations, glossaries and grammatical explanations. You can copy and paste the Greek into LinqQ more efficiently than you can type texts. And texts are conveniently broken up into digestible fragments. For example, from Thucydides:

πρὸ γὰρ τῶν Τρωικῶν οὐδὲν φαίνεται πρότερον κοινῇ ἐργασαμένη ἡ Ἑλλάς.
[Before the times of Troy, Hellas appears to have carried out nothing in common.]

The address is http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/grkol-1-X.html. I recommend looking it over. It’s completely free, you don’t have to register and there is no nagging. Disclaimer: I am a graduate of that university.

  1. I’m sure you already know about Perseus.org, but if not, there you can find dozens of Greek texts, usually including translations and sometimes commentaries.
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There are loads of questions I have, but I’ll only ask a few. Ancient Greek is to my mind the most desirable language to learn, but right now I do not want to spread myself too thin, so I’ll just hang around (and be envious). Actually, my brother would like to learn Homeric or Classical Greek, so I’ve collected quite a few useful links, in case he makes some headway, although it appears you all have plenty of material. (20 years ago I could read Koiné Greek quite easily, but I haven’t touched it in years, and back then there was not a thought of speaking it.)

rafael_nc, for typing the Greek that you’ve imported to LingQ, what keyboard did you use–how do you type the accents, etc.? Like you, I find typing material at the computer is a good way to learn it. I like how the old spionic font that was used on the Perseus site handled accents, but that isn’t like the “polytonic” keyboard that I found on my Windows computer, so right now I would probably cut-and-paste from an offline editor. That Assimil course looks great, but I haven’t bought a copy yet, as I’m still concentrating on other languages.

donhamilton, same question about the keyboard and font you use. That U. Texas at Austin link is super. Winfred P. Lehmann, one of the authors of the article, wrote a good primer of historical linguistics, years ago.

Argo, amice, same question about the keyboard and font. And are you using the Italian or English version of Athenaze? I hear the Italian version is more in the Ørberg (Lingua Latina per se illustrata) style than is the original English Athenaze. Are there recordings for either of the two versions, do you know? There are some for the English text online, but they are not all that good, as I recall.

For a LingQ slot, has Esperanto won out?

I hope you all have a great time. It really sounds like fun.

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@Don: Thanks for the links. I wouldn’t try to type all of Plato or Aristotle myself :slight_smile:

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@Ernie: I’m in Linux, and here it’s a matter of installing the “Greece Polytonic” keyboard layout and defining a “Compose” key, which is needed to input the “breathings” (is that how those are called in English? ἀ, ἁ, …) I haven’t tried in Windows, but from my experience with other languages I suppose it shouldn’t be that hard to set up something like that there as well.

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rafael_nc, It isn’t that easy on Windows, as far as I know. However, what I don’t know about Windows fills volumes. There’s a polytonic Greek keyboard that works okay, but I don’t like the mapping–the characters to be pressed to input the breathings, etc. (Yes, that’s what they’re called in English, you’re right.) Well, we’ll cross that bridge whenever or if ever I re-start studying Greek. I can always cut and paste onto LingQ, I suppose. Anyway, thanks for the super-quick and informative reply. Have fun!

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@Don thanks so much for the links. I’m going to visit them for shure when it will be the time to study greek!
The only problem is that i’m not a fan of what someone calls triangulation i.e. Studying a language via another previously studied language. So i dont want to go through english when i study greek so i prefer to start with athenaze (all in greek from chapter one!) because, as Orberg’s lingua latina per se illustrata, is absolutely the best way to start naturally, like a baby, without grammar. Then i would go through assimil… Still an inductive, natural way yo learn but starting reading some grammar notes (when you already know greek at a decet level). At that point your resources will be good for me to be used to improve ancient greek without english translation.

@Ernie salve amice, i’m going to definetely use the italian version. The same authors who have published a new version of lingua latina per se illustrata here in italy have published a new and improved version of athenaze that is very similar to the orberg’s latin book. I’ve used for latin the first volume and i’m starting now the second one… Best latin resource. So i also reccomend to purchase the italian version… Even if the grammatical explanation at the end of chapters is in italian. I think there aren’t recordings for athenaze but, as i’ve done with latin, i’m gonna record myself… A little bit boring but i consider it part of the study. I don’t know how to write ancient greek with keyboard, sorry.
At that point my bigger issue is: should i go through greek now? impatient